A Friend in Need
by Thrushsong k'Varis
Summary: Harry discovers his parents had more family friends than he thought when Sirius reminisces about a prank war between the Marauders and a couple from Japan, who have a child close to his age. Stuck in Grimmauld Place, he plots with Sirius to find a way to send letters to this Kaito Kuroba.
1. Chapter 1

As a warning; this is a 5th year HP fic...and I haven't decided how much of the annual Voldie attack will change...so you'll find out when you read it.

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August 7

To Kaito Kuroba,

Hello, my name is Harry Potter. I found out recently that my godfather was really good friends with your family when they were younger. We're apparently third cousins once removed or something; I'm not really good with family trees. Hearing stories about how well they got along made me want to get to know you. He and my dad apparently got in a major prank war with your parents the last time they were in Britain. It's nice to think that I have family, even if we live halfway around the world from each other.

I hope you don't mind me writing, even if you don't respond to this letter, since writing is about all I can do cooped up here. I'm not really supposed to be writing anyone (apparently it's not safe) but my friends brother works at the bank and he helped us find a way to keep these letters from being tracked. Things are honestly crazy around here, I really hope you write back so I can stop being bored and stressed for a while.

I should probably tell you more about myself than that we're related. I'm fifteen and at the end of summer I'll be going back to my boarding school in Scotland. I actually enjoy gardening and cooking, but my friend's mum, Molly, does all the cooking here and turned me down when I offered to help. Are you in school? What kind of things do you enjoy doing?

Hoping to hear from you,

Harry

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Chapters will probably be short, and updates irregular. Hope you enjoyed the first letter, Kaito's response should be up soon(?) since it's mostly written.


	2. Chapter 2

August 9

To Harry,

I have cousins?! Well, distant cousins, but I always thought my parents were it. I guess I should ask my mom about it. Can you find out which of our parents are related? Also, what's your godfather's name? He must be pretty good if he survived a prank war with my parents. Are you into pranks too? My teachers have already given up on stopping me~. At the beginning of this year I dyed all the classrooms desks our school colors, they still haven't figured out how to turn them back! Your school year starts in fall? We're going into second term after summer break.

It sounds like you're having a tough summer, are you grounded or something? Since you like gardening, maybe you could get a house plant to take care of? Or you could go my way and find someone to prank! But that probably wouldn't help if you're in trouble…

You probably don't want to talk (write?) about it, but why would someone track your letters? Wait, how does working at a bank teach someone about keeping people from tracking letters? You must know some interesting people. What are your friends' names and what are they like? Aoko is my childhood friend and next door neighbor, she and her dad are like family. We argue all the time because she's too fun to prank. But when she's really mad she'll chase me around with a mop; it becomes a deadly weapon in her hands! I'm jealous of your cooking skill, Aoko banned me from her kitchen years ago~

Kaito


	3. Chapter 3

August 11

Kaito,

Did I really not write his name? My godfather's name is Sirius, and my parents were James and Lily. I'll have to ask again, but I think my dad's mum (Sirius called her Aunt Dorea) is somehow related to your mum's family?

I'm not grounded, but I don't really want to write about why I can't go anywhere. The problem isn't being stuck here; it's that every adult who steps foot in the house treats me like I'm nine or something. Although, I'm in Sirius' house which apparently hasn't been lived in for about a decade. We've (by we, I mean my friends and I) been forced to clean to 'keep us busy' and the place is disgusting. Cleaning hasn't made it much better because according to Sirius his family was pretty awful, and everything in the house is creepy-looking or otherwise awful. It feels like living in a haunted mansion.

Bill is the one who helped with the letter thing. His whole family went to visit him in Egypt the summer before my third year. Apparently they got to see inside some of the tombs that aren't open to regular tourists. He works for CGF, and they're really big on security; Bill had to ask if they'd allow me to use their method and swear that he wouldn't actually teach me how to do it on my own before he got permission.

I haven't really had the chance to prank people much, I'm too busy at school, and my aunt and uncle would probably yell at me forever if I pranked my cousin Dudley. You'd probably get along with my friends Fred and George. They're twins, two years ahead of me, and half the time they call each other Gred and Forge and finish each other's phrases just to see how many people they can give headaches to. We sort of knew each other my first year, because we were in sports together, and their younger brother Ron is in my year (Bill is their older brother), but we actually became friends my second year when I asked Fred if he thought I'd look good with fangs. They're planning to open their own joke shop after they graduate, and the stuff they've worked on is brilliant.

Does your friend Aoko really chase you with a mop? What kind of pranks do you pull to make her that angry? I have to go clean again, so I'll send this and tell you about my other friends when you write back.

Harry

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A/N: CGF is a thing I found on the Potter Wiki, it stands for Consortium of Goblin Finance. They run Gringotts.

I've decided that CGF has wizarding and muggle branches globally (they just call it CGF London, etc.) and muggles think the 'G' stands for global.


	4. Chapter 4

August 13

Harry,

I finally got the story! So, my mom said that her grandfather Marius was Dorea's older brother, who was cast out of the Black family, moved to France and changed his name. From the way she told it, his parents were prejudiced idiots, and the only person he kept in touch with when he left the family was Dorea. Also, Mom said she and Dad totally beat Sirius in that prank war! She found a bunch of old pictures of them in our attic; I've sent copies of the best ones.

CGF. Your friends' older brother got _permission_ for you to use CGF security?! They're infamous for never sharing security secrets! What did Bill _do_ for them?! What did _you_ do? Did you save the life of the head of the London branch or something? What kind of security would even—oh, I guess I shouldn't ask that.

Fred and George sound like fun. Why haven't you been off pranking people with them? I'm sure the three of you can make your godfather's house seem less haunted-mansion-y that way. (Also, everyone else in the house might be more willing to let you get out and cause trouble somewhere else!) Please tell more about the fangs, it's making me really curious. And you'll have to tell me more about the things they've made. Who have you been hanging around if not your twin friends?

Aoko chases me with a mop all the time! It happens so often she's created a new brand of martial arts called mop-fu! But she's not quite fast enough to catch me~. She gets annoyed when I distract her from the lessons, not that she needs to pay attention any more than I do. Aoko's actually really smart, even though she likes to act all childish. We've been friends for forever it seems like. She's probably the only person who knows me well enough to tell when I'm about to pull a prank. Everyone else has no chance~.

Good luck avoiding boredom!

Kaito

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A/N: Marius Black was cast out for being a squib. I don't remember if it's specifically mentioned in the books or if it's a fanon thing, but Potter-Wiki shows him blasted off the tapestry so I used it.


	5. Chapter 5

August 15

Kaito,

The pictures are amazing, I love them! Really, thank you.

The fangs thing is complicated to explain…

Basically in my second year, the whole school decided I was a great person to blame for the attacks that had been happening (someone was threatening to attack students and at that point three people were in a coma). None of the professors did anything about it, and everyone basically shunned me the entire year (my friends Ron and Hermione were pretty much the only ones who would talk to me). The twins thought it was funny and decided to make a joke out of it. They'd start walking in front of me announcing for people to get out of the way, and once George said I was 'headed off for tea with my fanged servant', and I just looked at Fred and asked, 'D'you think I'd look good with fangs, Fred?'. They busted up laughing and spent the next week joking about different ways I could look properly fearsome. It was great, made the rest of the students reactions to me seem ridiculous and not quite so awful.

Um, about CGF…I don't really know. I asked Bill when he came over and he said it was because I made them a lot of money. Which is true, I guess, but I wouldn't have even known I could if Hermione hadn't told me there are laws about it. Apparently if you discover a place that's been lost for more than a few hundred years, you're allowed to claim anything you find there. Oh, Hermione is in my year and she's one of my closest friends. She loves books, of any kind, and she's amazingly good at researching. Hermione used to be worried about rule-breaking (we could have been killed, or worse, expelled!) but she's gotten a lot better since first year. She helped me cheat last year when I was illegally entered into a death tournament and none of the teachers tried to get me out of it. I complained to her yesterday about being stuck with nothing to do, and she gave me a bunch of her fiction books. Fred and George accused her of corrupting me because I actually read them.

Unfortunately, every adult in the house is still insisting that I shouldn't be allowed to do anything interesting (including pranks, because apparently they prefer haunted mansion style). They've been so paranoid about it I can barely get away from the cleaning; I've got no chance to pull a good prank. I managed to find where Gred and Forge disappeared to, though; it turns out there's a lab here and they've been experimenting. I didn't even understand half of what they did but watching them making stuff was really cool. They offered me prank supplies as a bribe not to bust them (not that Sirius would care, he'd be thrilled), and I got them to agree to let me send you stuff instead. You'd make better use of it than I would, so I hope you're good at retelling your pranks, I need a few laughs.

Please tell me your summer's going better than mine,

Harry

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A/N: I decided I need more of a timeline than 'sometime during summer', so I went back and added dates to their letters (mostly to give me a better idea of when I want certain things to come up)


	6. Chapter 6

August 17

Harry,

WHAT?!

Are you—how—I don't even know where to start! Except what the _hell_ is going on at your school?! Are you sure it's actually a school and not, I don't know, an elaborately disguised gladiator arena?

Your friend thought, in your first year of school (I think you've mentioned four, so you were what, eleven?) that you might have gotten killed. By what? Why was there (oh, please tell me it's not still there) something in your school that could kill you, that _first years_ apparently could get to? I guess if she thought you'd be expelled you weren't supposed to be there, but still!

And why did your school not go on lockdown or something if there was someone going around attacking students? Especially if they ended up in the hospital! How did people seriously think you could have done it (you were like, twelve, right?), and why the hell did none of your teachers help you?! And the death tournament! I'm almost afraid to ask what actually happened since apparently none of your teachers cared enough to help you survive it!

Are you sure you want to go back there in September? You could transfer somewhere with people who are possibly sane and that has responsible adults. Seriously, why are your twin friends and this Hermione girl the only people who've helped you? I constantly terrorize my classmates and teachers with pranks, but I'm pretty sure none of them would ignore me if I was actually in danger!

Sorry for the ranting I guess, but you better tell me if anything like that starts happening when you go back. I just started getting to know you, but the way you mentioned all of that makes me worried, and I don't want you to get seriously hurt before I get the chance to meet you in person! If this stuff is normal enough that you just casually mention it in letters, your life is insane.

Speaking of insanity, I found some pictures that probably got taken during a prank war; even Mom has trouble telling the people apart, but the ones I'm sending have either your dad or Sirius in them (probably).

Also, how the heck did you manage to send me miniature fireworks? They're amazing, I set them up in my backyard and they barely went over the fence but it still looked really neat. The look on Aoko's face when they went off after I threw water on them was hilarious. She was so surprised she couldn't even yell at me for a whole minute afterwards! I need to figure out how they did that, I have so many new ideas…

As for the rest of your letter, you clearly need to learn better escape techniques if you've been doing that much cleaning. You should tell them you want to spend more time with Sirius before you have to go off to school (you said it's a boarding school right?). Just be sure to look a bit sad and lonely when you ask about it, then they'll feel guilty for not letting you spend time together.

Please tell me the craziness of your school life isn't what got you stuck in a haunted mansion over summer.

Kaito

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A/N: Two chapters in a week! For the same fic even! Hopefully the muse will stay with me for a while longer...


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